Island Pacific Academy won the Design Award at the Hawaiian Electric Companies’ Hawaiʻi State VEX IQ Middle School Robotics Championship held Feb. 23 at St. Louis School. The Design Award is presented to team with an organized and effective approach to the robot design process, project and time management skills and team organization as documented in an engineering notebook. The team was able to successfully demonstrate to the judges their ability to produce a student-built robot with minimal adult assistance. By earning the Design Award, Island Pacific Academy qualified for one of the 19 slots to the 2019 VEX World Championships to be held in Louisville, Kentucky. Photo credit: Art Kimura, Hawaiʻi Space Grant Consortium.

Kapolei Middle School (KMS Tech Hui IQ Team 7074Y) earned the Energy Award at the Hawaiian Electric Companies’ Hawaiʻi State VEX IQ Middle School Robotics Championship held Feb. 23 at St. Louis School. While not a World-qualifying award, the Energy Award recognizes the team’s extraordinary enthusiasm.

HONOLULU, March 7, 2019 – Eight middle school and 11 elementary school robotics teams qualified for the 2019 VEX World Championships during Hawaiian Electric Companies’ Hawaiʻi State VEX IQ Championships. The VEX Worlds will be held April 24 – May 1, 2019 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kentucky, featuring top-ranked robotics teams from 45 countries.

In a field of 40 teams per championship, the 19 Hawaiʻi middle and elementary school robotics teams qualified for the VEX Worlds through winning the following awards:

St. Louis School also earned the STEM Research Project Award, qualifying twice for the world championship. Due to the overlap, a second team from Waialua Intermediate was able to qualify for the VEX Worlds through its skills ranking. For a full list of award recipients, please visit https://www.robotevents.com/robot-competitions/vex-iq-challenge/RE-VIQC-18-6611.html.

The 19 teams will join 5 middle and high school VEX VRC teams that won World Championship qualifiying slots during the Hawaiian Electric Companies’ Hawaiʻi State VEX VRC Championship in January.

Since 2013, the Hawaiian Electric Companies have sponsored the VEX State Championships. Today, there are 270 IQ teams and 92 VEX teams across the state, with about 1500 students participating in more than 70 robotics events throughout the year. Globally, there are 24,000 teams in 57 countries participating in student robotics.